The Second Edition of Tour Fever is Out and Ready for Reading

It’s that time of year.  

You’ve got the fever.  

You want more. 

You need more. 

Tour Fever is here to answer those questions, slake that thirst, grow that pallet so that the taste you’re enjoying turns into the feast the Tour de France rightfully is.  

When the first edition came out, GQ.com gushed,

“A superb companion to the world’s greatest race, Tour Fever breaks down the race’s history, terminology, and traditions in a smart yet easy-to-use guide that offers something to both the brand-new enthusiast and the experienced racer. If you’re planning to tune into the Tour’s final days—and c’mon, dude, you should!—it’s the perfect companion on the couch. I’m sharing mine with the guys in the office—not so they’ll stop mocking me, but to show them that sports in July is more exciting than Astros at Padres.”

The second edition is even better.  More stories, more information, updated explanations of the rules, including the inscrutable Green  and Polka-Dot Jersey races, and the elusive Team GC race (it is a big deal).

I’m enjoying the new cover design by Dave Wilson, and the cover pic of Bernard Hinault, Guido Van Calster, and Eddy Planckaert sprinting in Zolder, Belgium during the 1981 Tour, taken by John Pierce of Photosport International.  Hinault is in Yellow–you rarely see favorites for the overall mixing it up in sprints these days.  Hinault went on to win, his third Tour victory. All three are wearing the now-forgotten hairnet helmets, which pretty much kept kept your scalp intact.  And you can see sponges, allegedly soaked with cologne to cope with the high heat of the race track, sticking up in the backs of Hinault and Van Calster’s jersey.  The shot itself is also a rarity, a mid-sprint side-view closeup that’s so hard to get right, few even try.